According to its website, Justice for Juveniles is:
a grass roots group of concerned parents, grandparents, teachers, scholars, internet professionals, legal professionals and many others dedicated to ending the prosecution and adjudication of children as adults.
The goal of our organization is to inform and inspire other citizens to get involved in the effort to bring about these changes -- always keeping in mind that children are never adults. We join with other advocate groups to use a global, national, and local approach to bringing American juvenile justice into line with other international child rights standards.
Community support, redirection, diversion, and treatment are the foundation of our policy goals.
Please join us as we join others, in changing the political tide that encourages state sanctioned child abuse.
I found this post, which encourages letter writing, to be particularly fascinating:
Thomas will have a hearing in June to decide if this will go back to juvenile or not. It may fall on deaf ears but we have to try to help this child.he was only 13 when he brought guns to school. He is a bullied child like eric and his father is a convicted felon. He also is receiving NO SCHOOLING. You can look on articles that have been written for more info. I don't know how to send a copy of our letters to the prosecutor though I don't have an address for him, I can't find anything. Thanks.
Let me think about this. Is it possible Thomas Gregory White is receiving no schooling because he brought a gun to school and attempted to kill his principal and would likely have been successful had his gun not jammed?
That kind of action would make anyone think twice about offering White any schooling.
You're a generally liberal Joplin middle school teacher...is this an example of the old saying that "a liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet."?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about liberal or conservative labels, but I have always been consistent with the idea that people need to take personal responsibility for their own actions. And with all of the problems facing teachers and school administrators these days, I sure don't think they need the added burden of allowing those who bring weapons into a school to get off with a slap on the wrist.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what the parents and concerned teachers have to gain from us allowing children to bring guns into schools and not be punished appropriately for it? Will they march to the beat of a different drum after they or their children are shot?
ReplyDeleteSo few people are taught that actions have consequences and these consequences are not always the most convenient. The student made a decision to bring a gun to school (the fact that he was bullied and his father is a convicted felon aside). He made a decision on that day to not be allowed to attend that school anymore. His education, unfortunately, will come the hard way. If he had made a decision to instead overcome his life hardships, keep his head up and keep going, he would still be in school, would eventually graduate from high school and even college, and be a productive citizen.
You can only give them the tools to be successful. You can't make them use them or use them appropriately.
The kid is 13. That says a lot about his decision making processes.
ReplyDeleteTo deny him an education is to only make him more likely to commit crimes in the future. I think that is pretty damn evident.
Or Aimee he would decide to pull the gun on himself like every bullied kid thinks about at one point or another. Then of course there would be no new measures taken because it was just a sick and disturbed individual taking his own fucking life, who cares then?
ReplyDeleteI love how you say, "the fact that he was bullied... aside", you really do need a lesson in cause and effect. Sounds like the Joplin Schools aren't that good after all (sorry to the Joplin Schools if she was educate somewhere else).
The fact of the matter is he never had the tools to be successful, never. He was struggling in school because he was learning (and probably all round developmentally disabled, his sister said the dx for asperger's fits him perfectly), yet he wasn't receiving any special help.
And Randy, God forbid we give a 13 year old boy who wants to turn his life around an opportunity to do so. He has told his sister that he wants to be a therapist so he can help kids out, remember justice not vengence. The fact of the matter is no one knows if he tried to shoot anyone and not just the school. Innocent until proven guilty remember?
Aimee is not a product of the Joplin schools, if that makes any difference.
ReplyDeleteThe justice system has always been torn between punishment and rehabilitation; and while I have no problem with the concept of people being allowed to turn their lives around and do something better with them, I also believe it is important to send a message that kids who bring guns to school and attempt to use them (and from all evidence available to this point, that is exactly what happened at Memorial Middle School) are going to be dealt with harshly. They should not be able to hide behind their ages, their sad home lives, or the flaws of society in general. What Thomas White did traumatized the students and staff at Memorial, cast a shadow over the school year for every student, teacher, and administrator in the Joplin R-8 School District, and could very easily have been much, much worse. While I understand what you are saying, I still say the right decision was made to charge White as an adult.
Randy, how many of your students honestly watch the national news on a daily basis? For that matter how many times have you heard about Thomas on the national news, I got the inital message on the CNN ticker but nothing else, and I watch news shows alot.
ReplyDeleteSeriously now how is treating a 13 year old like an adult going to send a message to anyone outside of Joplin if they don't hear about it. I could go up to 100 random teens on the street and 99 of them wouldn't even know who Thomas was or who Kenneth Bartley was or who Andy Williams was or who Cody Posey was or... (you seeing a trend here?). To get a message out there has to be someone on the receiving end!
Let me ask you this, do you think Thomas will ever be able to get a job as a therapist with this on his record? The only way he has a future, or at least a good future, is if we try him as a kid, anything else and there will be a victim here. Maybe it would have been better if Thomas had pulled the trigger on himself.
So Aimee says pull yourself up by your bootstraps. "Keep his head up and keep going?" What?? And Ryan seems to think a kid will hear about this case and decide not to bring a gun to school. How out of touch with kids are you two? Kids in dispair can't rescue themselves (they're KIDS) and they don't pay attention to what "lessons" the courts are “teaching” other kids. If they were watching what results other kids get they'd wear their seatbelts and stop dying in car accidents while not buckled in. Oh by the way this kid won't get any "slap on the wrist". His parents don't have enough money for the slap on the wrist well-to-do kids get in this country. The US has over 2225 KIDS IN PRISON FOR LIFE. The rest of the world combined? 25!! Ask yourself how is it so easy for me to throw away a child and not look back???
ReplyDelete